Greece confident ahead of EU meeting, but sticking to its no-austerity guns

ATHENS, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Greece said on Sunday it was
confident of reaching agreement in negotiations with its euro
zone partners but reiterated it would not accept harsh austerity
strings in any debt pact.

A day before a euro zone finance ministers' meeting in
Brussels to shore up with Greece's dwindling finances and help
keep it in the euro zone, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told
Germany's Stern magazine Athens needed time to implement its
reform programme and shake off the mismanagement of the past.

"I expect difficult negotiations; nevertheless I am full of
confidence," he said. "I promise you: Greece will then, in six
months' time, be a completely different country."

The Eurogroup of finance ministers meets in Brussels on
Monday to try to find common ground with Tsipras' new leftist
government, elected on a pledge to scrap the austerity
strictures of Greece's international bailouts, on issues such as
debt management, financing, privatisation and labour reform.

If the meeting produces no results, there is a concern that
Greece will be headed for a credit crunch that would force it
out of the euro zone. Progress, however, could mean further
negotiations, perhaps later in the week.

"The irresistible force will be meeting the immovable
object," Vasileios Gkionakis, head of global FX strategy at
UniCredit, wrote in a note.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi refused to
discuss the possibility of Greece leaving the euro zone if an
agreement with European Union/International Monetary Fund
lenders fell apart as a result of Greece's demands to alleviate
its debt burden. He simply reiterated the euro zone's founding
position that membership is "irreversible".

BRIDGE PROGRAMME?

Tsipras wants a bridge programme to be put in place for a
few months while a new deal is agreed to replace the bailout,
which has already forced drastic cutbacks onto ordinary Greeks.

The rest of the euro zone, particularly Germany, says Greece
must continue with those commitments as a quid pro quo for the
240 billion euros ($274 billion) it has received in bailouts.

Slovak Finance Minister Peter Kazmir, whose country is said
to be taking a tough line, tweeted that he was sceptical whether
all details could be agreed on Monday.

Greece's current bailout expires at the end of the month. A
Eurogroup meeting last week ended without apparent progress
although technical talks were later approved.

Greek government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis showed no
sign that Greece was easing back on its core demand.

"The Greek government is determined to stick to its
commitment towards the public ... and not continue a programme
that has the characteristics of the previous bailout agreement,"
he told Greece's Skai television.

"What we have agreed on is that there is a need for a
national reform plan, which European partners are listening
closely to, and positively to tackle steady problems in Greece's
economy and society that date back decades."

Some of the problems facing the Eurogroup are semantic. The
Greeks, for example, will not countenance anything that smacks
of an "extension" to the old bailout, preferring something new
called a "bridge" agreement.

WAVE OF ANGER

This is political. Tsipras rode into power on a wave of
anti-austerity and anti-bailout anger last month and would have
a hard time explaining a row-back so soon. Thousands of Greeks
massed outside parliament in Athens on Sunday to back his
strategy.

But even a cosmetic change of labels could have practical
consequences. An "extension" may not require many national
ratifications unless it involves additional financial
commitments from euro zone governments.

But any new bailout programme might require several national
parliamentary ratifications and could also bring Germany's
Constitutional Court into play.

Among those requiring a parliamentary vote on a new bailout
are Germany, Slovakia, Estonia and Finland, all identified by
one veteran of EU meetings as part of a hard core of opponents
to Greece's plan.

The Eurogroup's main debate with Greece's "no-austerity"
stance will revolve around the funding of a bridge programme,
Greece's request to reduce the 'primary' budget surpluses,
excluding interest payments, that it is required to reach, and
privatisations and labour reform.

Greece said on Saturday that it was reviewing a 1.2 billion
euro deal for Germany's Fraport to run 14 regional airports, one
of the biggest privatisation deals since Greece's debt crisis
began in 2009. It has also pulled the plug on the privatisation
of the ports of Piraeus and Thessaloniki.

On the question of liberalising labour markets, government
spokesman Sakellaridis remained tough:

"We will discuss it with workers and with pensioners.
Whatever we do we will do through dialogue. We will not
legislate at the sole behest of outside factors."
($1 = 0.8785 euros)
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(Additional reporting by Costas Pitas in Athens, Paul Day in
Madrid and Jan Lopatka in Prague; Editing by Kevin Liffey)